Old New York – Boy Outa Brooklyn

YANKEE GO HOME

**The Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Tennessee – God’s Country!**

I HAD BEEN LIVING in London for three decades when a voice in my head began nagging me. “Yankee Go Home,” it said. I believe all ex-pats hear this voice no matter what their home country. It’s natural to want to be home especially as we age. And though I remain eternally grateful to Britain for giving me the use of the hall for so long, I had fallen out of love with the place and the feeling was mutual.

The London I moved to thirty years earlier had become unrecognizable. Believe it or not, back then, London was shut on Sundays and the idea of a Muslim mayor was laughable. (A Hindu Prime Minister? Impossible.) In fact, I was shocked in 1990 when I saw just one completely veiled Muslim woman on the street! For the first twenty years of my London adventure, crime – especially violent crime – was very low and there was a general orderliness and decency about the place. (At least compared to the New York City I had fled.) I miss London circa 1990 as I miss New York circa 1956. Sadly, both cities are gone forever.

By 2010, I was looking behind me on the streets and looking at anti-FGM billboards on the tubes. I also had to slalom through a feces-strewn tent city to get into my tube station. Then I had a fist fight with a pickpocket on a London bus (I won) and the police questioned me! Before my eyes, London had morphed into Detroit with a few Ye Olde touristy bits. It was time for this actor to exit and pronto.

Some readers may remember my earlier post “Fade to Black” which catalogued the deliberate discrimination against White performers. (The best-selling thriller author James Patterson says that White writers now face the same attack.) Well… since the BLM riots and media company capitulation to the Black mobs, that anti-White discrimination has increased exponentially. Anyone who watches film and TV now recognizes how much non-White faces have invaded our screens. So, I was facing a future as an old White actor in London who would be unemployable or offered roles in anti-White garbage that I would never accept. Then Covid hit and I was shocked and disappointed by how easily the Brits surrendered. Other nations did the same but somehow, I expected better of the British. So… in May of 2021 – feeling as though I was escaping East Berlin in the Cold War – I split for points West.

Strange to report, this Brooklyn boy didn’t end up back on the stoops of Brooklyn but rather in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Tennessee – Davy Crockett country! In 1955, like every other kid in the US, I lived in my Davy Crockett coonskin cap. Now, by some strange twist of fate, I was living a stone’s throw from Davy’s birthplace. And it’s as close to a Goldilocks spot as you could find. The waves of White urbanites fleeing here prove my point. The terrain is beautiful, the climate temperate, the demographics 95% White, and, prior to the Biden economy, it was remarkably affordable. Sadly, in my one year in this demi-paradise the price of gas has doubled with no ceiling in sight and food prices are skyrocketing, too.

More bad news is that the anti-White bias controls show business here, too. The casting notices for screen, stage, or voice work are all skewed toward non-Whites and people who clearly have more genders than sense. The producers and directors trumpet their preferred pronouns and expect me to do the same. (I don’t.) The Web pages of regional theaters are plastered with Black faces giving the impression that theater is an almost exclusively Negro invention and activity. And these theatres proclaim that their primary mission is not to put on good productions of plays that a paying audience might enjoy seeing, but rather to promote racial equality, social justice, diversity, and inclusion — especially for the LGBTQLMNOP+ community. When I phone the office of the Screen Actors Guild, I am given a list of options to dial if I have experienced racial or sexual abuse. It’s revealing that I am not given a phone option if I, as a worker, feel I have been monetarily abused. The once mighty SAG union has been effectively busted by the Jewish media moguls who claim to be all for social justice.

Tennessee is a solid red (Republican) state, and I am living in the reddest part of that state. This is Trump Country. I landed here only a few months after Biden took office, but the roads were already lined with Trump 2024 signs, and I regularly see hilariously filthy anti-Biden bumper stickers too vulgar to recount. The folk here are very, very pro-police and pro-military. Tennessee is known as the Volunteer State because it has always sent more men per capita to the military than any other.

Veterans are worshipped here. They get special sales, parking spots, and meal deals. I’m the only guy not wearing a t-shirt declaring “Proud Vietnam War Veteran” or “Proud Korean War Veteran.” Many wear hats that proclaim, “Proud Wounded Veteran” or, even better, “Proud Battle-Wounded Veteran.” The sad truth is that these brave men are knee-jerk super-patriots. They were cannon fodder but can’t admit it. As much as they despise Biden, if he sent them into battle, they would click their heels (even their prosthetic ones) and be off. As far as they are concerned, no American ever fought in an unjust war.

I believe this mindset is a legacy of the Civil War. Southern men, with their British blood, love to fight. But they also feel a need to prove they are loyal to the union. I’ve seen this same syndrome in Mormons who also had a long history of bloody opposition to the rest of America. That’s why they disproportionately serve in the FBI and CIA. This “rah-rah the flag” mentality makes discussing American foreign policy a minefield. I have used the Russia-Ukraine war to make some progress, but I first must counter the anti-Russia nonsense they’ve been fed by the media including Fox News.

I thought there were lots of churches in Rome until I moved to Eastern Tennessee. There are churches everywhere here, even in the middle of the forest. Baptist is by far the most common denomination, but there are more versions of Baptist than Heinz has beans. Then there are the other major Protestant groups along with Church of Christ, Church of God, and assorted micro-denominations. Catholics are rarer than rocking-horse shit. In fact, when I tell people I’m an ex-Catholic they look for my horns and hooves. I’m told that in one church very near me they handle snakes. But don’t get the impression I’m living in a hillbilly holler. This region has ballet companies and symphonies. Life is very similar in the Appalachian Mountains up and down the East Coast. Anyone familiar with the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania or the Adirondacks of New York would feel at home here.

Everyone I meet invites me to their church, so I’ve been to quite a few. The services are bland with decent contemporary Gospel singing and generic “Jesus loves you” sermons. The congregants are ancient and busily waiting for The Rapture. They are instinctively against all the right things like globohomo and open borders but are unaware that organized Jewry is pushing these poisons. Most have never even met a Jew in their lives. (The same is true in Mormon Utah.) Most churches are not explicitly Christian Zionist, but they have a Disneyfied picture of the Twelve Tribes. In their artwork, Moses looks like Charlton Heston and the ancient Jews look Bavarian. This makes it difficult to make them see the truth about modern Jews and the criminal state of Israel. After all, “That nice Charlton Heston wouldn’t do anything un-Christian to us.”

The naïveté of these Christians extends to homosexuality. They are vehemently against it but don’t really know how truly degenerate it is. It is beyond their comprehension and simply too distasteful to discuss. As a result, some queers are making headway in the local school system pushing those “Cindy Has Two Mommies” books. I raised the issue with several local politicians. They simply could not comprehend what I was talking about and didn’t want to know. So, ironically, the unspeakable nature of homosexuality is its best defense.

Against my better judgement, I attended a 100% White Republican Party luncheon and, as I feared, it was full of back-slapping Chamber of Commerce types and their former beauty queen wives. None of the candidates who addressed us said anything of substance or that couldn’t have been said by a Democrat. Not a peep about race or the Great Replacement Policy. In private conversation, I asked the candidates some tough questions about race, but they brushed them off as not relevant because we’re all God’s children. (Christianity is a big problem for White nationalism!) I later learned that most of these candidates run unopposed, so they have become complacent.

These politicians and their constituents are in for a shock and a fight. The forces of darkness have crept into these mountains while their backs were turned. There is now an Islamic Cultural Center here.

The regional airport will no doubt soon be forced to accept Biden’s secret nighttime flights filled with non-White invaders. One local church has just imported an Afghani family with their entire village soon to follow, along with their goats. And, as is always the case, the local university is a haven to Jewish professors and pink-haired, morbidly obese creatures of dubious sexuality. I doubt these psycho-sexual misfits can find common cause with the native conservative Christians. I predict conflict in the not-too-distant future. The locals better conjure the fighting spirit of their British pioneer ancestors, or they will go the way of the dodo.

I oppose violence and would never condone or encourage it. But as America faces social collapse and the inevitable chaos it brings; it is comforting to know that there are four million registered deer hunters in Pennsylvania alone. I doubt many of those are non-binary. Tennessee is even more gun-friendly. The media-hyped mass shootings in America just increase gun sales here. (By the way, the US ranks only 64th in the world in mass shootings!) In fact, in this state you don’t even need a license to own a gun and concealed carry licenses are easy to come by. The men I see in Walmart with shirts hanging over their belts are concealing more than their beer guts. That said, this is the most peaceful region I’ve ever lived in. Maybe it’s because so many people are armed. In my one year here, I have not seen one violent incident or even heard a raised voice.

In some ways, America is little changed in my thirty years away. The shape of daily life is about the same. Ubiquitous phones, social media, and technology are one definite change and one for the worse. But the rise of entitlement culture is the biggest change I’ve seen. The glorification of victimhood and vulnerability. The rampant narcissism. I believe a certain Austrian painter called it, “The tyranny of the unwell.”

Thanks to voter fraud, the Democrats avoided being wiped out in the recent mid-term elections. But the results proved this is a 50-50 country with no hopes of reconciliation. The left and right need a no-fault divorce. The Whites and non-Whites need racial separation. Barring those rational, compassionate solutions things will get very ugly.

Meanwhile, the race to replace Biden as the Democrat nominee in 2024 will be as heated as that to replace Johnson in 1968. I predict this period will be similarly riot-filled and blood-soaked. All the entitled minority factions will be off the chain. And I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather ride out the storm than smack dab in Davy Crockett country!

________________________

Available as a paperback and eBook here and here and as an eBook here

COVID QUESTION #2

So, I was listening to an African lady doctor being interviewed on a major talk radio station.

Cartoon Black lady doctor — **This gal is a world-renowned expert on infectious disease and works for W.H.O.**

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, W.H.O. is the World Health Organisation of the United Nations. Along with being notoriously corrupt and inept, it’s the main purveyor of the pandemic hoax.

Anyway… this woman explained that Black African immigrants have higher rates of Covid infection and death than Whites due to “cultural factors.”

What she dared not say was those factors include all too many Blacks believing wacknoid conspiracy theories about Western medicine being part of a genocidal program perpetrated against them by evil Whitey. So, even those Blacks genuinely infected with Covid (or, anything) avoid effective health care.

Hell, Africans still consult witch doctors when plagued with pesky problems like kuru, scrofula and, uh, well… plague.

Hell, in Africa, witch doctors chop albinos into little pieces to make magic potions to cure impotence, dandruff and the heartbreak of psoriasis.

African albino boy with arm hacked off — **And you thought I was joshin’ ya.**

Hell, in Africa, men rape infants to cure AIDS.

If that isn’t happening then why are charities asking me to give money to stop it?

The African doctoress went on the say that many “people of color” including those of African descent work at “ground zero” of Covid – public transportation, care homes and hospitals. Then, she inadvertently spilled the beans –

“The sad truth is that the vast majority of non-White immigrants who come to the West carry latent TB.”

That was when your correspondent spat his Fruit Loops all over his radio.

Cartoon man vomiting — **“Whoa, whoa, rewind – WHATTHEFUCK???!!!”**

When I was a kid in Brooklyn, we joked that TB stood for Twisted Balls. Now, let it be said that Twisted Balls is nothing to sneeze at. In fact, sneezing whilst afflicted with Twisted Balls must really, really smart. But that’s not the TB to which our Black lady clinician was referring. No, she meant Tuberculosis. Ya know, Tuberculosis? The world’s most infectious and deadly bronchial infection?

Poster - Fight Tuberculosis — **Yeah, *that* TB.**

Now lemme think… wasn’t there something in the news recently about a super-infectious and potentially deadly bronchial infection making the rounds? Hmmmnnn… wait… it’ll come to me… oh, yeah – Covid -19.

Sketch of detective with magnifying glass — Curious to a fault, your intrepid reporter felt compelled to consult his well-thumbed copies of Gray’s Anatomy and Funk & Wagnalls dictionary plus official government websites where he learned this –

If you have latent TB, the TB bacteria in your body are ‘asleep’. You are not ill and you cannot pass TB on to others.

However, the bacteria might ‘wake up’ many years later, making you ill with active TB.

Latent TB bacteria are more likely to wake up if you experience lifestyle stresses or other illnesses that weaken your immune system.

Uh… might working at “ground zero” of Covid count as a stressful lifestyle?

Uh… any chance Covid might weaken a person’s immune system?

But, enough about them. How ‘bout us?

If you were already battling a serious bronchial infection would you want to be driven, nursed or doctored by someone carrying the most infectious and deadly bronchial infection known to man?

Be honest now. Would ya? Huh?

Lest you think I am being a meanie to those poor folks from the Third World who are sadly afflicted with TB, I remind you that during the Great European Migration into America, White immigrants deemed physically or mentally unfit were shipped back whence they came.

Doctor examining boys at Ellis Island — **White criminals, lunatics and those with TB were (Quite rightly) kicked the fuck out no matter how old they were.**

Immigrants on ship deck in New York harbor — **The ships that had allowed sick Whites to board were hit with heavy fines. So much for give us your tired, your poor…**

Today, our governments literally invite the sick into our countries while airlines compete to see which can fly in more of the “wretched refuse.”

Hmmn… better make that “wretched and retching refuse.”

Here comes the $64,000 Covid Question

And , it’s a two-parter –

The same creeps who are pushing the official Covid narrative are those pushing for open borders and all the other outrages that will lead to The Great Replacement.

So… Hands on buzzers, contestants.

Do these creeps not know that TB is rampant in immigrants from the Third World? (In which case, they are criminally ignorant, medically incompetent and should not be allowed to dispense a single aspirin.)
Or, do they know and are eager to flood the West with millions of ticking TB time-bombs which could explode at any time causing financial ruin and widespread death?

It’s one or the other boys and girls.

Back in my misspent Brooklyn boyhood I heard this ditty –

TB or not TB?

That is the congestion.

Consumptive be done about it?

Of cough, of cough.

But not for a lung, lung time.

Funny how prescient kid’s can be.

Funny how Covid is being used to distract us from a genuine threat to our existence.

Funny… yeah…

Black & White sketch of horrified male face — **So, how come I ain’t laughin’?**

___________________

Boy Outa Brooklyn a murder-memoir by Jack Antonio — Available as a paperback and eBook from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk and as an eBook here

Roadmap to Blog Outa Brooklyn

Thanks for visiting my blog. It is a sampler of my murder-memoir Boy Outa Brooklyn. The best way to enjoy it is to start at the first post and read chronologically. I hope you’ll find it both hilarious and horrifying.

I will also be posting about the best books, movies and songs about Brooklyn. And, sharing my practical and off-beat travel tips. If you enjoy my blog, please follow me. Hover your mouse in the lower right corner of the screen and a pop-up box will appear. Enter your email address and you’ll never miss one of my posts. Your address will not be sold or shared and you won’t be pestered with any sales cons.

Welcome to my Brooklyn,

Jack Antonio

Available as an eBook here

And as paperback and eBook here

amazon.com

and amazon.co.uk

STOP THE PRESSES! #2

Vintage cartoon of newspaper boy — Here’s another hard-boiled homage to the two-fisted reporters of yesteryear – Walter Winchell and Jimmy Cannon.

The White liberals who cry and march for George Floyd would shit their pants and call the cops if he came near them . . . Abbott’s Frozen Custard in Rochester, N.Y. is the best in the universe – end of story . . . Margaret Sanger, the unhinged founder of Planned Parenthood, attended seances to contact the dead children she had abandoned . . .

Margaret Sanger as a young woman — Maggie was an unfaithful wife, a lethal mother and a Rosicrucian.

Is there a more annoying song than Hey Jude? . . . Whites are fleeing US cities at a record clip. So desperate are they to escape the coming race war that they are buying houses in rural America sight-unseen . . .

Black woman twerking in BLM riots — And people wonder why they flee.

The electric vibrator was invented to save the wrists and fingers of 19^th century psychiatrists who spent much of their time masturbating neurotic, middle-class women to calm them down . . .

The straightjacket was used to prevent the insane from masturbating themselves bloody . . . The Kellogg Brothers were 7^th Day Adventist fanatics who invented cold cereal as an anti-masturbation food . . .

Vintage Smith Brothers cough drops box. — God knows what these kinky bastards were up to!

If the Chinese ever get the whip hand in America the Blacks will scream, “Come back, Whitey. All is forgiven!” . . . Other Orientals call the Chinese, “The Jews of the Orient” . . . Next time you’re in New York avoid Little Italy; there are no Italians left and the food is poison . . . But visit the nearby Tenement Museum to experience the “White privilege” enjoyed by European immigrants . . . Mickey Mantle, the great Yankee ballplayer, dropped out of the 1961 home run race with Roger Maris coz he got an infection from a botched VD injection . . .

Mickey Mantle batting right. — “The Mick” bragged that he led the league every year in the clap.

Mickey got his clap shots from the same “Dr. Feelgood” who injected JFK, Nixon and most of Hollywood and Washington. We still don’t know what the good doctor was putting in his “vitamin” shots . . . Question: Does anyone actually read Toni Morrison or Maya Angelou? . . .

Phil Silvers and the Bilko platoon. — Many episodes of the classic sitcom Bilko were written by Neil Simon.

They were filmed in an old open-air silent film studio on a Bronx rooftop that had been enclosed for TV use . . .

The iconic 1950s pin-up Bettie Page appeared on Bilko.

I never liked or believed Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas or Rock Hudson . . . Lancaster was in Harvey Weinstein’s league as a sexual predator . . . The Broadway composer Richard Rodgers was another notorious sex creep . . .

Richard Rodgers — If you didn’t fuck Mr. Rodgers you didn’t get into one of his squeaky clean musicals.

In the early 20th century, Atlanta was the center of silent film production. Then the Jewish movie moguls fled to the West Coast to avoid paying patent money to the gentile Thomas Edison . . . I don’t care what vegans say, there’s nuthin’ better in life than a rare prime rib with a baked potato and salad . . . Lucca and Gubbio are my favorite Italian towns. And, you can give me Siena over Florence every time . . . How can it make sense to social distance getting on and off a plane but sit cheek by jowl on the flight? Youth wants to know . . . George Floyd did five years for holding a gun to a pregnant Black woman’s stomach while his partners in crime stole everything she had . . . When’s the last time you saw a man smoking a pipe? . . .

Breakfast at Ruth's Diner in Salt Lake City. — Do yourself a favor and have breakfast at Ruth’s Diner in Salt Lake City.

Laurence Olivier’s Richard the Third is so good it hurts. He based his villainous make-up on the vile Broadway producer Jed Harris and the Big Bad Wolf . . .

Laurence Olivier as Richard the Third — See what I mean?

Ya think Rush Limbaugh will grow a pair before he dies and tell the truth about Jewish power and influence in America? . . . The great “commie-killer” Senator Joseph McCarthy is the most vilified and lied about figure in American history. He was rough but he was right. And the decrypted Cold War messages sent from the Soviet Union to its Washington embassy prove how right he was . . .

Sen. Joseph McCarthy with anti-McCarthyism headline — McCarthy’s friends John and Robert Kennedy served on his anti-communist committees.

Be-bop sucks and Charlie Parker is the most over-rated figure in American popular music . . . Tell me something, why do so many doctors wear bow ties? . . .

Luna Park, Coney Island at night — Coney Island circa 1900 – 1960 was even better then you can imagine. Forced integration and race riots killed it

Read Bruce Jay Friedman! He’s a darker Woody Allen and a funnier Philip Roth. He’ll make ya laugh and wince at the same time . . . Dames with spaces between their front teeth are instantly endearing . . . Women shouldn’t be cops, firemen or soldiers and men who serve must meet stricter height and fitness requirements . . . The Antifa-BLM riots revealed how out of shape our police and National Guard have become . . .

Policemen wearing red high heels — Here’s that militarized police you’ve been hearing about!

Most of the Old Testament stories including Adam and Eve and Noah and the Ark were stolen from the Egyptians and Assyrians then cut and pasted together . . . The chief Biblical redactor was a female scribe in the court of King David . . . With any luck I’ll go to my grave without having read Marcel Proust or J.K. Rowling . . . In his best moments, Jerry Lewis was as funny as anyone. The rest of the time I want to slap him. Same with Lou Costello . . .

Lou Costello, Bela Lugosi and Glen Strange in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein — Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a very, very funny movie.

The Empire State Building was built in one year in the depths of the Depression! One year! Think about that! . . . Homeopathy and chiropractic are quackery and so is “European-style” osteopathy. But American osteopaths are actual doctors. Their medical schools haven’t been devalued with affirmative action admissions. So, if you’re in America and want a good doctor get an osteopath. He’ll have OD after his name . . . German Village in Columbus, Ohio is the prettiest neighborhood in America . . . Abstract-Expressionism was funded by the C.I.A. and like “conceptual” art it is nothing but a money laundering scam . . .

Action painting by Jackson Pollock — Paid for with your tax dollars!

Correction

In my last post, I wrote that the comic Mort Sahl said, “Lenny Bruce knew people use The Prophet by Gibran to get laid.” Not so. Lenny said it himself . . . But Mort did have the brilliant line, “In my younger days, I dated actresses and other female impersonators” . . . But enough about Meghan Markle.

BROOKLYN BOOKS #5

I love reading good books – especially good books set in New York. I’m guessing you do to or you wouldn’t be here. And, I’m guessing that, like me, you love discovering book stores built over basements bursting with used books and then hunting and coughing your way through the dusty stacks.

I even have a recurring dream of descending into an imagined basement in a Manhattan slum and finding the used book store of my dreams. (Literally of my dreams.) For years, I’ve been returning to this seemingly limitless catacomb.

The great joy of being a book hunter is stumbling over a new author, subject or world. Here are some of my most treasured discoveries –

Psychic Dictatorship in America

by Gerald B. Bryan (1940)

Guy and Edna Ballard – *the Bonnie & Clyde of the Occult*

An insider’s exposé of The Mighty I Am. This spiritualist cult was popular in the 1930s and is still around. The money-mad Ballards gave birth to many imitators and set the template for the entire New Age movement complete with fairies, fruitcakes and frauds. On orders from the Ascended Masters, adherents murdered their pets. No foolin’.

Instantaneous Personal Magnetism

by Edmund Shaftesbury (1933)

“Look into my eyes, stop fidgeting and remove your wet clothes… ”

Tips published by the International Magnetism Club based in Manchester, England. Chock full of lifesaving information on nerve tensing, magnetic foods, wet clothes, thin shoes and fidgets. Hey, these guys were from Manchester and that’s good enough for me. Betcha they were Masons, too.

Adventures with Vending Machines

by Ray Burkett (1967)

Vending sun tans in the 1940s.
And, people doubt that man landed on the moon.

The “straight skinny” from one-who-knows on how to make millions stocking gumball machines in garages and paperback book racks in drug stores. With special chapters on, condom vending machines, pay toilets, the salted-in-the-shell peanut racket and the ever-fraught subject of vending in negro locations.

Analism Among the Poor

by Preston Harriman (1970)

Part of Harriman’s multi-volume indictment of class struggle and lube.

Harriman’s oeuvre includes: Analism Among the Poor, Analism Among the Rich, Anal Girl, From Adultery to Analism and Oral Aunts. (Preston was either hungry for a change of pace, or had a very friendly aunt.) Sadly, I’ve found only the one work by Harriman but I live in hope. Still, I’m not sure I’d shake his hand at a book signing.

But what does all this have to do with Joe the Engineer, I hear you cry. This –

You know how it is – your moving down the used book aisle, head tilted sideways, giving yourself scoliosis, scanning the book spines when a title catches your interest. You never heard of the author. The cover and blurbs intrigue you. You read the first sentence and next thing you know the clerk is telling you the store is closing. You blow the mildew from your lungs, brush the cobwebs from your clothes and head up to the cashier clutching gold-in-print.

That’s how I found Joe the Engineer by Chuck Wachtel (1983). I stumbled over it in the used book basement of the original Sam Weller’s in Salt Lake City. I found Francine Prose, David Markson, Charles Portis, Sam Lypsyte and Tom Perrotta in similar basements around the world. (They haven’t written any “Brooklyn” books so I’m not featuring them on this blog. But, if you are a fan of dazzling prose, do yourself a favor and read them. Trust me. Just do it.)

Anyone who has read my memoir Boy Outa Brooklyn will know that my opinion of the neighboring Borough of Queens is not high. Since Wachtel’s book is set in that hellhole, it’s not a “Brooklyn” book. But, since I grew up surrounded by “Joe the Engineers” and might have been one myself, and since it validates everything I’ve written about Queens and since it is so damn good and since this is my blog and I can do whatever I wanna do – I’m gonna do you a favor by making it my Brooklyn Book # 5. (So there.)

Joe the Engineer is quite simply one of the truest and most moving novels of working-class life ever written. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Joe is a Vietnam vet stuck in a dead-end job reading meters in Queens basements and living in Richmond Hill – the same dead-end Queens neighborhood where he grew up.

Joe’s Richmond Hill, Queens is the evil twin my South Brooklyn.

Joe is saddled with half-assed intelligence and half-assed dreams. And, Wachtel does a masterful job of capturing the mind of a person who isn’t fully conscious of the “how and why” of his miserable state but senses that something is wrong somewhere. The working class is full of such “canaries in a coal mine.” The media loves to mock them when they are inarticulate in their rage and confusion but I’ve always heard them loud and clear.

I’ve heard them because I am one of them. My antenna has always been finely attuned to pick up snide condescension from the elites. (That’s what cost Hillary Clinton the election. White workers ain’t dumb ya know.) So, I appreciated how “working-class Wachtel” applied his writer’s eye to our shared caste without snobbery or sentimentality.

I especially enjoyed listening to Joe’s thoughts as he read his customer’s lives while reading their basement meters. I saw him as a blue-collar Howard Carter mining the minutiae of ancient Egyptian life from hieroglyphs though in Joe’s case it is from ancient wall calendars and broken toys.

In one exquisitely painful passage, the unhappily married Joe has a disastrous one-night-stand with a supermarket checkout girl.

I found a 1983 radio interview with Wachtel – the year Joe was published. I was pleased but not surprised to learn that one of Chuck’s literary models was Hubert Selby Jr. whose Last Exit to Brooklyn is one of my Brooklyn Books. I was less pleased and surprised that Wachtel sounded prissy and academic. And when he blithely stated that America was a “mulatto” nation, my antenna started twitching. “Mulatto” is code for White genocide. It’s shorthand for “Death to Joe the Engineer.”

Happily, in 2020, “mulatto” is still not the norm in America and race-mixing is frowned upon by the vast majority of all races. (Don’t believe me? Listen to minority talk radio.) And, it was certainly not the rule fifty years ago despite Wachtel’s best wishes. However, due to the subversive work of those condescending elites (whom Wachtel chastised) and their fellow-travellers like, ironically, Chuck Wachtel himself, the Joe the Engineers of Richmond Hill and the world are being replaced.

The couple who bought Joe’s parent’s house.
Ya think they have racial consciousness?

Yes, the solidly White working-class Richmond Hill, Queens to which Joe returned after being used as cannon fodder in Viet Nam is now not open to his kind. For Richmond Hill, Queens is now known as Little India-Guyana-Trinidad and Tobago.

Richmond Hill circa 2050.
Who needs water meters when there’s no water?

I eagerly sought out and read Wachtel’s other works which include poetry but, for me, Chuck is a one-hit-wonder. Still, as with those other liberal half-wits I’ve reviewed, Alfred Kazin and Pete Hamill, I’m gonna cut Chuck Wachtel some slack coz he wrote a beauty. Do yourself a favor – read it!

There seems to be a movie in the works but I fear they’ll kill the book with politically correct crap. Betcha the supermarket check out girl is Black or Muslim. And, probably cast with Chuck’s approval. Never mind – “I hereby pronounce Joe the Engineer an honorary Brooklyn Boy.”

BROOKLYN BOOKS #4

Pete Hamill and I grew up side-by-side in working-class, Catholic, Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Row of brownstones in Park Slope, Brooklyn — Pete in leafy Park Slope.

Brooklyn trolley in the 1940s — Pete in the 1940s

The cast of The Honeymooners on a bus. — Me in the 1950s

Pete – Irish. Me – Italian

Kiss Me, I'm Irish. Blow me, I'm Italian.

That last distinction was the biggie. For as much as I admired and even feared the Brooklyn Irish; and though we lived cheek by jowl, I felt they were alien to my tribe. Sharper. Colder. Meaner. And, lots, lots drunker.

19th century anti-Irish immigration cartoon in the USA.

I can’t remember ever seeing an Irish parent being warm and affectionate with one of their children.

It was the Irish parents who mocked their kids and blackened their eyes; the Irish parents who drunkenly fell off bar stools and tenement stoops; the Irish parents who got thrown into the aptly named Paddy Wagon to be hauled away by Irish cops.

It was the Irish mother upstairs in our tenement who got her sluggish sons out of bed by throwing pails of cold water over them. It was the Irish father upstairs who chased one of those same sons out of their kitchen window only for the terrified kid to go sailing past our kitchen window as we ate dinner.

My childhood impression, formed in countless games of stick ball, tag and Monopoly, was that all Irish kids had fiery tempers and green teeth. I also learned that all Irish nuns had cheeks forever reddened with fury. No lie, it seemed like all of Irish Brooklyn was constantly plastered and pissed-off.

So, for me, Hamill’s memoir was an insider’s lowdown from the enemy camp – one that confirmed what I felt as a child about his kith and kin. In A Drinking Life, he spills his guts on himself and his breed with bittersweet affection and brutal honesty. This is a brave, brilliantly observed memoir that captures the feel of 20^th century urban American life as well as any I’ve read. Pete’s description of the VE Day celebrations in Park Slope brought me to tears. The way he conjured his proud, angry one-legged father made me see and feel the man as he limped up the street to the corner bar.

Pete Hamill and I played in the same streets, rode the same trolleys, hung-out in the same parks, fought in the same playgrounds and gorged in the same ice cream parlors. I suffered a year of weekly piano lessons from a terrifying Irish nun at Holy Name School where Pete suffered the full-time fury of the Sisters of Perpetual Rage.

Group of unsmiling nuns — Here they are saying “cheese”

I even bought movie tickets from Pete’s mother at the local itch-house.

Pete Hamill at Holy Name School, Brooklyn — Me in the 8th grade. Wait minute… that’s Pete!

Yet, no matter how similar our childhood landscapes, we were separated not only by ethnicity but by politics.

Pete – Left. Me – Right.

Pete Hamill became one of New York’s premier newspaper columnists and bleeding-heart liberals. Like his contemporary Irish columnist, the insufferable douchebag-blowhard Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill loved playing the “muck-raking White knight” fighting for what he believed was equality but what I knew was actually White replacement.

Pete believed dat dey was depraved on account dey wuz deprived.

In the 1980s when Brooklyn was stewing in crack-fueled racial violence, Hamill sided with Black Brooklyn against White Brooklyn – specifically Italian Brooklyn. He sneeringly called we Italians fighting for our survival, “guidos” which was tantamount to calling Blacks, “niggers.” I’ll never forgive Hamill for being a race traitor.

Irish drunks are a dime a dozen (and a fuckin’ bore) so Hamill’s saga of bottoming out before straightening out, though well told, wasn’t for me. I much preferred his bawdy, Henry Miller-like tales of being a budding beatnik artist. Those were full of fun period details and read like Tropic of Art School. Besides, a little sexual braggadocio never hurts. In fact, Brooklyn and braggadocio go together like sausage and peppers.

And, hey, if you were playing “hide the shillelagh” with…

Pete Hamill with Shirley — Shirley MacLaine…

Pete hamill with Jackie Onassis — … and Jackie O

You’d braggadocio, too!

So, this social-justice leprechaun wasn’t averse to a bit of jet-setting at Elaine’s and P.J. Clarke’s. (Somehow I doubt he ever squired Tawana Brawley to either boîte.) And yet… like Alfred Kazin (the subject of my last post ) as much as I wanted to smack Hamill in the chops for his silly knee-jerk liberal bullshit, I couldn’t help liking the guy.

I’d love to sit down with him over a beer (Oops, better make that a root beer) not at Elaine’s but at Farrell’s – the legendary Irish working-class watering hole in Park Slope. We could stay off politics and shoot the shit about the nuns, the priests, the gangs, the girls, the Irish Mafia, the Italian Mafia, Coney Island and especially the Dodgers. The Brooklyn Dodgers.

Pete & Me

Two boys outa Brooklyn

So very different

So very the same

BROOKLYN BOOKS #3

Alfred Kazin (1915-98) was a noted Jewish critic – one of my least favorite literary types. I’m not a fan of that species because it’s part of the Jewish monopoly on printed media. (Don’t believe me? Check the names on the mastheads of every magazine and publishing house in America but… be careful. Many of those Anglo-Saxon sounding names are not genuine. Name changing is part of the Hebraic shape-shifting ploy called passing.)

The Jewish critics rave about members of their own tribe (often without merit) while neglecting more talented gentile writers. And, they only promote philo-semitic authors. Plus, their view of literature is hopelessly tainted by their Jew-centric perspective. So, to put it mildly, there exists an unbridgeable political, religious and cultural gap between Alfred Kazin and I.

And yet… I gotta say that I loved Alf’s memoir of growing up in the Jewish ghetto that was Brownsville, Brooklyn in the 1920s and 30s. In fact, I couldn’t help liking the guy. Go know. I think it’s that undefinable “Brooklyn” thing that bonds us.

Like Alf, I’ve always been a compulsive urban walker;
a trait we share with another Brooklyn boy – Henry Miller.

A Walker in the City is Kazin’s elegantly written collection of character studies, incidents and musings. It brims with colorful tales of rabbis and radicals, great books, great music, great meals and great awakenings. The reader senses Kazin walking himself into adulthood and consciousness. His love of Brooklyn, literature and his people permeate every page. I admire his own writing more than his criticisms of others.

Don’t get me wrong. I bristled at much of what he wrote but he did such a great job of writing that I cut him some slack. Hey, I’m easy. So, sue me.

I owe Alf a debt of gratitude because his memoir was one of those that inspired me to tell the story of my boyhood across the borough in Italian-Catholic Brooklyn. That said – our takes on race, religion, sex and politics are as diametrically opposed as his Brownsville is from my South Brooklyn.

Karl Marx – Brownsville’s Meshuggah Messiah

It’s a sad but predictable irony that all of the Marxist and liberal bullshit about class and race preached in the streets and synagogues of Brownsville (and described so brilliantly by Alfred Kazin) failed. Bigtime. Marxists embedded in the city government used Marxist principles to replace the Jews of Brownsville with the Blacks of Brownsville. The result? After “70 count’ em 70” years of those Marxist ministrations, Brownsville is the murder capital of New York City.

Black men on the streets of Brownsville, Brooklyn — A lively debate about Torah and Das Kapital.

The area was never a garden spot but now it is a no-go zone of hellish housing projects. It makes Flatlands and East New York look like Cap d’Antibes.

Elevated subway platform in Brownsville, Brooklyn — Catching the Last Train to Brownsville.

The few Jews left in Brownsville (even fans of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela) have become the prey-of-choice for roving gangs of feral youths playing the “knock out game.”

Male victim of an anti-semitic attack — No wonder “down with the struggle” Bernie Sanders abandoned Brooklyn for Lily White Vermont.

Never mind… if you enjoy reading memoirs written with wit, style, brain and heart then have I got a Brooklyn book for you – A Walker in the City by Alfred Kazin.

So, read it already!

BROOKLYN BOOKS #2

Dead Black man on the floor in New York City in the early 20th century.

The Thomas Boyle Trilogy

Only the Dead Know Brooklyn (1985)

Post-Mortem Effects (1987)

Brooklyn Three (1991)

Thomas F. Boyle — Why do the best “tough-guy” writers always look like Geography teachers?

The late Thomas Boyle was a Pennsylvania kid who spent part of his childhood in Brooklyn. (That makes him an Honorary Brooklyn Boy in my opinion.) He graduated from Cornell, earned his doctorate at NYU and taught at Brooklyn College for many years. Some book review sites confuse him with the more famous T.C. Boyle the author of many brilliant novels including The Road to Wellville – set in a 19th century health-spa and Drop City – set in an Alaskan hippie commune.

Our Thomas Boyle’s last book (published in 1990 in the midst of his crime trilogy) was Black Swine in the Sewers of Hampstead – a study of Victorian crime fiction. It sounds like the Sherlock Holmes mystery Conan Doyle forgot to write! I’ve added it to my “must read” list.

Only the Dead Know Brooklyn by Thomas Boyle.

Any fan of gumshoe fiction will enjoy Boyle’s modern yet faithful reworking of the much-loved archetypes and plot devices of that often hackneyed genre.

Anyone who knows the geography of Brooklyn will get an extra kick out of Boyle’s locales. His hard-boiled tales follow Detective Frank DeSales as he chases bad guys down hidden alleys in Red Hook, across garbage strewn vacant lots in Williamsburgh and even onto the hallowed ground of Green-Wood Cemetery.

If you like Lawrence Block’s ex-cop now “private dick” Matt Scudder, you’ll feel right at home with Thomas Boyle’s active duty detective Frank DeSales. They are brothers from another mother.

New York Police with dead body on subway platform. — “On the job”

I can’t find any movies or TV shows based on this trilogy which is a shame and surprising. For decades now, “All things Brooklyn” have been all the rage. Go know!

BROOKLYN BOOKS #1

Vintage postcard of the 9th street branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. — **My discovery of Brooklyn literature began here. In fact, I still have an overdue book from this branch. Hey, I remember that car!**

Any list of famous writers from Brooklyn would fill a decent sized phone book. And any list of books set in Brooklyn would be almost as large. I’ve read plenty of both but there are many more I’ve missed. So, the posts I’ll be making about Brooklyn books will be far from a definitive list. Think of them as tips from your friendly Brooklyn librarian.

It would be remiss of me not to begin with the very first “Brooklyn” book I ever read. (Hell, it was the very first book I ever read cover-to-cover!) And, I’ve reread it many times since – most recently last Tuesday. In fact, it’s the overdue book mentioned above – overdue for over 60 years! If you haven’t read it then all I can say is, “I pity you!”

The book cover of The Phil Rizzuto Story by Milton J. Shapiro. — **The life & loves, wit & wisdom, trials & tribulations of the inimitable “Scooter” – Hall of Fame Yankee shortstop and broadcaster. And, it goes without saying quintessential Brooklyn Boy.**

“Psssst, hey kid, ya wanna read a really doity book?”

The book cover of Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr.

As you drive into Brooklyn across the Brooklyn Bridge a large sign looms up at you. It screams, “Last Exit to Brooklyn.” If a driver doesn’t take that exit they are taken onto the Gowanus Expressway and thence over the neighborhood of Sunset Park where the spectacularly downbeat novel Last Exit to Brooklyn is set. In the 1950s, the period of the novel, that sign should have screamed, “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”

The Brooklyn Queens Expressway beneath Brooklyn Heights.

In the 50s, the waterfront of Sunset Park was a land of perpetual night – a slum rotting in fetid shadow beneath the elevated Gowanus Expressway. The Mafia had killed the docks, Robert Moses had killed Sunset Park by cutting it in two with his hideous highway and the Dodgers had killed Brooklyn by moving to L.A.

Hubert Selby Jr. knew this coz he was a Brooklyn boy born right next door to Sunset Park in Bay Ridge.

Vintage photo of Industry City in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. — **Industry City – another flop by Robert Moses & FDR. It’s now a gentrified flea market. Hey, I remember *those* cars, too.**

Selby’s book consists of inter-locking tales of losers, junkies, sadists, pimps, hookers and trannies who fight for scraps in a nightmare world of gangs and gang-bangs.

1950s male transvestite — **Vying for the title of *Miss* Gowanus Expressway**

I was raised in the 1950s just a few blocks away from this world. I even swam in the public pool there. But, I knew better than to venture into the Terra Incognita below the highway. Many years later, I met a Yorkshireman who had lived in a sleaze-bag hotel in Sunset Park during WW2. He was outfitting ships to British standards that had been built in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He told me that the whole area was full of crap games, gyp-joints and whorehouses all making a fortune from the servicemen and dock workers.

1940s workers in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. — **They all hadda get drunk and they all hadda get laid.**

WW2 female mechanics at Brooklyn Army Terminal. — **They all hadda get drunk and they all… Hey, dig those crazy saddle shoes!**

In the 1980s, I would spend pointless, penniless weekends meandering around Brooklyn by bike. I was drawn to the derelict and rotting factories of Industry City that lined the waterfront in Sunset Park. I thought, “Damn, this would make a great film set.” And, that’s exactly where, a few years later, much of the movie of Last Exit to Brooklyn was filmed.

Industry City and Bush terminal in Sunset Park, Brooklyn — **In the 80s, it was just me, my bike and tumbleweeds.**

That film is good but doesn’t capture the daring style and outrageous vitality of Selby’s prose. Plus, by 1989, much of the shock value of his book’s subject matter had been lost. But, when it was first published in 1964, Last Exit to Brooklyn was an outrage and banned in several countries. I haven’t been impressed by Selby’s other work but anyone interested in the lower depths of Brooklyn life and the heights of “outsider” American literature should read Last Exit to Brooklyn.

Cartoon male face with tongue and eyes protruding,

In 1965, I read it as a 15-year-old while working as a messenger in Times Square. The guy who sold it to me could have been arrested. I made sure that its instantly recognizable cover was always visible sticking out of my back pocket as I made deliveries. And, I made sure that same cover was visible as I read Last Exit to Brooklyn on the subway. I didn’t live in a artist’s garret in Greenwich Village but it was fun to pretend that I did.

Porno at the P.O.

Man screaming in a straight jacket — Suiting up for another graveyard shift at
the Grand Central Station P.O.

The Christmas blues of 1970 morphed into the January blues of 1971. I and my fellow “cultural casualties” of the 1960s having dropped out of college and dropped far too many psychedelics were facing the prospect of a lifetime of blue-collar work in the Post Office.

Yeah, yeah, it was a job-for-life with uniform and pension but not quite what we had envisioned for ourselves just a few years before. Back in college we were going to be actors, writers, musicians, poets, painters, philosophers even. But, the luster had faded from our Age of Aquarius fantasies as it had from the few sorry strands of Christmas tinsel that hung from atop the mail sorting coops.

We were a motley crew but not without our talents and charms. Alex was a half-assed genius and chess master. Mark was a poet and fluent in Latin. Murray was a killer wit and killer blues guitarist. Sandy was trying to decipher the hidden codes in Dylan’s lyrics. And, Charles, our only Black member, was trying to convert everyone at the Post Office to 7th Day Adventism and vegetarianism. We were all from working class families and had discovered to our shock and horror that unless something miraculous happened we would not escape the gravitational pull of our caste. So, we embraced our fate.

Vintage Soviet poster of worker at anvil with sledgehammer — **Our new self-image and style**

As if on cue and without any spoken agreement, we took to wearing plaid, flannel work shirts, tattered jeans, garrison belts and battered work boots. We cut our freakish hair back to a moderately radical length. Less Woodstock. More Workers of the World. We trimmed our facial hair to Lenin length. And, we embraced the Grateful Dead’s album Workingman’s Dead as if it were written only for us. After all, we were nothing if not workingmen.

Album cover of Workingman's Dead by the Grateful Dead — **A great album even if you’re not working.**

One of the worst aspects of being a trainee mail-sorter was that we weren’t guaranteed hours. If the mail dried up we were sent home. And, this often happened shortly after we had clocked on for our graveyard shift. There we’d be in midtown Manhattan at Midnight having planned to be up all night and having ingested amphetamines to help us be up all night but suddenly with no reason to be up all night. Luckily, Alex lived in a nearby East Side tenement so we’d pick up some munchies and beer and head over to his pad, there to smoke hash and listen to Workingman’s Dead till dawn’s early light. Or, at least, till Alex’s neighbors banged on the walls. We named ourselves the Dead Workingmen. (Okay, not that clever but we needed all the help we could get.)

Suddenly, it became embarrassingly clear that Tony, one of our Supervisors, was madly in love with Sandy. I don’t think this burly Italian knew he was gay and he certainly wasn’t swishy in any way. But, goddamn, he was as queer as a three-dollar bill for Sandy. Lovesick Tony was eager to demonstrate to Sandy how powerful he was by how many favors he could do for him. One big problem. If he gave Sandy a break he had to give it to all of the Dead Workingmen or his cover would be blown. We teased Sandy mercilessly about his conquest but he still generously connived to use his charm over Tony to the group’s advantage i.e. without “coming across” for the Italian Stallion, Sandy kept him sweet on our behalf.

Heart tattoo on man's bicep — “Hey, I love you, Sandy.
You got a problem wit dat?”

Some nights Sandy would persuade Tony to let us get lost for a few hours. We’d head over to Alex’s while still on the clock and then sneak back in at 8AM to punch out. Some nights at Sandy’s behest Tony would let us hide and sleep on the filthy mailbags piled out on the loading dock. Other nights he’d put us on parcel sorting duty – a welcome break from the din and dementia of the sorting coops.

We’d stand before rows of open mailbags and practice our basketball jump shots tossing boxes into the bags. Sometimes we even read the addresses and aimed for the right mail bag. Sometimes we even made a basket. But, truth to tell, we didn’t give a shit. We had come to hate the mail itself. Mark once tickled his throat until he vomited into the tray of mail he was sorting. (I know, I know, disgusting. But, you gotta understand that 99.999999% of the mail we were sorting was junk mail. And, the rest was going to Reverend Ike!)

Time Clock Confidential

Workers at factory time clock — **“Oh yeah, punch *this*.”**

I don’t know if anyone actually punches a time clock anymore. But when I first joined the world-of-work as a teenager, I was angered by the demeaning nature of this act. I was even more angered by the grown-ups who loitered by the time clock waiting for it to tick to a specific second so they could get a few paltry shekels more in their meagre pay envelopes. I was embarrassed for them and hated how they compared stories of time clock victories and defeats and of famous “time clock jockeys” of yesteryear. The Post Office was full of these lifers who stared in amazement and clucked with disdain as I strode past them and punched out without even looking at the hour hand. Wage slaves. Not me.

Vintage photo of young boys cleaning factory machines — **The Dead Workingmen hard at work.**

Meanwhile back at the Tony-Sandy love affair things became waaaay too strange and sad for this trainee mail-sorter. It happened one night when members of the Dead Workingmen were surreptitiously tapped on the shoulder and told to report to Tony’s office. There we discovered the other invited guests were the usually unfriendly Supervisors. Tony had set up a movie projector and hung a sheet on the wall. He greeted us conspiratorially then locked the door, turned off the lights and showed us a stag movie i.e. the type of fuck-film that was usually confiscated if sent in the U.S Mail. I wondered if this film had been caught by an eagle-eyed postal dick and turned over to Tony.

As the silent, grainy, 8MM black and white film unspooled on the stained sheet, the air in the room became noxious with nervous laughter, unfunny quips and cigar smoke. We’d been invited to a classic “smoker.” The film showed a singularly unattractive couple reclining on a singularly uncomfortable table and fucking in a singularly unenthusiastic manner. Watching their coitus was as erotic as watching the piston action on a Ford V8. But, I sensed that a bizarre male-bonding ritual was at play. The Supers wanted to show us that they weren’t such bad guys after all. Hey, they were like our fathers and uncles – just a bunch of older working-class fellas who liked watching fuck-films with a bunch of younger working-class fellas. This secret screening was an olive branch extended across the generations and a sort of test.

Would we make the grade and join their ranks of Merry (albeit horny) Mailmen?

Also, except for Charles, we were all White as were the Supers. I sensed they wanted to find racial solidarity with us since they spent so much time with obese Black women with whom they shared little cultural interest. Least of all watching fuck-films.

I’m sure that shrinks would highlight what they’d claim was clear homo-eroticism in this sweat-lodge soiree. But, I don’t think that was what was going on with the Supers. Except for Tony. He turned on the projector, pushed me aside and sat next to Sandy. As the couple built to their inevitable climax we all watched in silence. Except for Tony. He giggled and elbowed Sandy while peppering him with questions in hushed rabid whisper.

“You believe the size of the cock on that guy?”

“Wait. Wait. She swallows the whole thing.”

“Look at that bush. You like hairy twat, Sandy?”

“Hey, Sandy, you ever put it in a girl’s ass?”

Then, after the “money shot” in which the on-screen stud splashed his semen all over his fair maiden’s belly Tony gushed – “Yeah, that’s the good part, right, Sandy?”

The Supers must have overheard Tony’s pillow talk but they didn’t react. Meanwhile, the Dead Workingmen shared looks of amused horror. Mainly horror. Then the lunch horn barked, the lights came on and with eyes cast downward we bolted out of there muttering, “Holy shit, what the fuck was that?!”

Shortly after that night I was fired for telling an especially sadistic Supervisor to go fuck himself. The union jumped to my defense assuming that I wanted to keep my job. At the mediation meeting the union rep was dumbstruck when I told all present that the United States Postal Service could sort my job where the sun don’t shine. I thought about throwing the porn party in their faces but didn’t coz I knew that would make big trouble for Tony and the Dead Workingmen I was leaving behind.

Album cover for Johnny pay check and Take this job and shove it. — Workers of the world unite.
You have nothing to lose but your jobs.

CODA

Ten years later while walking in the middle of nowhere on Staten Island, I ran into Murray. (What are the odds?) We recognized each other even though he was now as obese as his female Black co-workers. Yes, he was still at the Grand Central P.O. but he was now a Junior Supervisor. No, he wasn’t playing guitar anymore.

It was an awkward encounter and a painful one for him. Murray and I had come from similar working-class backgrounds, two Brooklyn boys who had arrived at the same point via similar paths. Then our paths diverged. I had followed my dream of being an actor. He had buried his of being a musician. We exchanged phone numbers and promised to get together. We never did.

Boy Outa Brooklyn a murder-memoir by Jack Antonio
Image: the smiling face of Steeplechase Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn — Available as an eBook and paperback
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
And as an eBook here
https://books2read.com/The-Boy-Outa-Brooklyn